Presumably the girl in the bikini wasn't one of them. "Fiberfab was a kit car manufacturer founded by Warren "Bud" Goodwin in 1964. Goodwin's earlier company, Sports Car Engineering had manufactured Microplas Mistral bodies under licence and sold them as the Spyder. Fiberfab started building street rod parts and body panels for Mustangs before moving on to kit cars. It was sold in 1983 to Classic Motor Carriages." (wikipedia)

Strange things coming off the roof, a man running with burst braces and his pants coming down... It looks like a good time is being had by all.Valkenburg is in the narrow sliver of territory in the south of the Netherlands between Belgium and Germany.

On the Great Salt Lake causeway, another six units behind the lead; one seems to be in the short-lived SP-SF pre-merger scheme and another in Rio Grande livery. This is now part of the Union Pacific system.

Operated by the Devonport Steam Ferry Company between the north shore and Auckland as a passenger and mail boat, the paddle steamer Victoria was built by Charles Bailey Senior for the company and was launched in November 1881. She lasted until 1912 when her survey certificate expired and she was taken to "Rotten Row" behind Brown's Island and sunk. For more, see earlier posts and our books.

Today marks 70 years since the Soviet Red Army reached the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland which was the largest and best known established by the Nazis during WW2, and probably the best documented as most of both Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau) remains. There was also a third camp called Monowitz which was part of the IG Farben chemical works.

Most of those who arrived at Birkenau did so in a cattle car like that shown. Boxcars were often used by the Germans for their own troops too, but the difference was the soldiers weren't packed in like sardines and did not have to remain in them for sometimes days as the railway lines were very crowded during the war - and often the target of Allied bombing.

The Nazis blew up the gas chambers before they left, but for the mini-series War and Remembrance from the late 1980s, the producers rebuilt one from the original plans; they demolished it again after filming.

Monday, January 26, 2015

A 1950s Vauxhall, a Commer van, and of course a Chrysler Valiant taxi. The director also deliberately framed the two metal rubbish bins - standard in A/NZ at the time - in this shot...

The movie They're a Weird Mob, based on a best selling book by an author with an Italian name, was made in 1965 and provides a good time capsule of life in Sydney in those days, the character of which has since changed a lot; the most notable thing when watching it now is that faces then were almost totally European, and 'wogs' were a reference primarily to Greeks and Italians (not heard in this movie; Italians are referred to as 'dagos' and 'eyeteyes').

From an historic transport viewpoint, you get to see quite a few street scenes, as you would expect, where British vehicles were plentiful though not quite as dominant as they were in NZ, as well as a trip on a harbour ferry and a brief scene of a red single deck electric train at Punchbowl station.

So here is a theme of Kings: King Street in Sydney, 1929, King Street in Melbourne circa 1960 with two generations of electric trains - Tait and Harris (see the book Railway Electrification in Australia and New Zealand) - and trams on King William Street in Adelaide in the early 20th century.

The phenomenon of boat loads of asylum seekers on tightly packed, unseaworthy vessels from Indonesia and Malaysia (in particular) arriving on Australia's coast began after the end of the Vietnam war. At the time the majority of Australians were tolerant of them, but as the numbers since the late 1980s have never shown any sign of diminishing and their origin has expanded to include countries that are predominately Muslim, the vast majority of Australians now just want them sent back to where they come from. In the 2013 general election, Tony Abbot made stopping them a prime election issue, including by the use of drones. According to what the government claims, only one such boat reached the Australian mainland last year.

And what do these Muslims do when they are granted immigrant status? Well, it seems a significant number spend their time complaining about the absence of the repression in Australia that led them to seek 'asylum' from where they came... On Saturday about 800 of them rallied in Lakemba, Sydney, against free speech in Australia.

Another of the delightfully quaint items of Australian motive power was this rail motor class which had wood bodies and roof mounted radiators. A total of 37 were built and 22 of them still exist.

"As built, the normal seating capacity was 45, 21 in 1st class and 24 in 2nd (or economy) class. A further seven could be accommodated on the flap seats provided in the guard's compartment. An additional feature of these cars were the prized seats either side of the driver (the drivers cab being centrally located in the middle of the carriage, there was one passenger seat located either side of the cab, looking directly ahead)." More

Including a Vauxhall or two. The pic shows the Cleghorn Memorial Rotunda in the Market Place on the left which is still there. As a bit of trivia, the Blenheim Post Office experienced a heist of $51,000 in 1968, the present day equivalent of $867,000 and the biggest such robbery in NZ history.

The MR class was introduced in 1978, most built by Uerdingen in Germany. More were built in the 1980s by Scandia like this one dating from 1984. They were supplemented by almost identical powered cars classified as MRD and built by Scandia in the 1980s, coupled with the Uerdingens.

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An international retailer of books, magazines, DVDs and postcards since 1985 and
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All at Sea: stories of New Zealand seafarers

Narratives from interviews conducted over several years with 16 merchant navy sailors - 14 men and 2 women - who recounted their stories from the last full fledged sailing ship, the Pamir being returned to her home country of Finland after WWII to recent stories on today's inter-island ferries and coastal vessels, as well as international cargo and passenger ships which sailed to various parts of the globe. A full range of occupations are covered from Deck Boy, Engineer, Steward to Master as well as harbour pilots, union leaders and shipping company executives.

NZR Memorabilia

A fabulous new book containing many colourful illustrations of old postcards, pamphlets, posters, and a wide range of objects that have been used by the NZR and its personnel from the 1860s to the present time. Together they tell in visual form the importance of NZR to NZ and its people over the past 150 years and provides a useful reference for collectors.

Voyage to Gallipoli

Details of the troopships to the Gallipoli campaign of WW1 and more WW1 naval history.